Knox-Castrillo Treaty (1911)

Knox-Castrillo Treaty (1911), a loan convention signed in Washington, D.C., on 6 June 1911 between U.S. secretary of state Philander C. Knox and Nicaraguan minister Salvador Castrillo. Reflecting the U.S. government's desire to provide financial, and by extension political, stability for Nicaragua, the convention called for the Nicaraguan authorities to negotiate a loan for the purpose of re-funding the nation's internal and external debts. The bonds floated for the loan would be secured by Nicaraguan customs duties, and the customs would be supervised by a collector general approved by the U.S. government. Although ratified almost immediately by Nicaragua, the treaty languished for nearly a year in the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In May 1912, when the committee finally voted, the treaty failed to secure the necessary support for a favorable report to the Senate. The Nicaraguan government then decided to negotiate directly with U.S. bankers for a short-term loan, a financial arrangement that did not carry the official sanction and guarantees that treaty status would have provided.

See alsoDollar Diplomacy; United States-Latin American Relations.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1912 (1919), esp. pp. 1,071-1,104.

Dana G. Munro, Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy in the Caribbean, 1900–1921 (1964), esp. pp. 186-204.

Additional Bibliography

Gobat, Michel. Confronting the American Dream: Nicaragua Under U.S. Imperial Rule. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005.

                                   Richard V. Salisbury